Interview on the RFID Industry with Truecount Corporation

1. When was your company founded and what is the approximate employee size?

The company was founded in June 2010. We currently have 10 employees.

2. What are some major challenges that RFID technology will be able to address in the near future?

Simply stated, RFID is the best way to count. RFID can address all of the challenges related to achieving highly accurate counts and increased visibility of items. For example, issues and activities surrounding inventory management, cycle counts, loss prevention, auditing and locating. RFID also excels at employee tracking, performance management and much more as well.

3. Where are we in the life-cycle of RFID investing and development?

Truecount believes we are in the early phases of the life-cycle of RFID investing and development. We characterize the recent successes at Macy’s Bloomingdale’s division, J.C. Penney, American Apparel and Walmart as a tipping point for industry acceptance of item-level RFID and a bold indicator of what’s to come. With some of the industry’s top national retail chains driving forward on this front, it’s fair to say that item-level RFID technology is ‘crossing the chasm,’ as defined in the seminal technology marketing book by Geoffrey Moore. We expect to see continued widespread implementation of RFID across many industries.

4. Do you see any specific industries or geographic markets that will propel demand in RFID technology over the next 3 years?

Basically we see heightened activity for the RFID industry driven by energy companies, health care providers, transportation providers and specialty retailers who all are investing in the technology, especially for asset management and inventory management applications. We expect to see continued growth in many of these areas over the next 3 years. In our niche, Apparel and Footwear, we expect to see continued exponential growth at the item level because the immediate benefits and fast ROI RFID can bring to a retailer are too compelling to overlook. Other areas in which we’ve seen interest include the use of RFID in combination with social media. We expect to see RFID use grow at venues such as ski slopes, amusement parks, water parks and so on. New ideas for implementing RFID arise each day because of the power of the technology. The key is finding someone with experience to implement your project. The learning curve can be steep and an experienced RFID company can save you time, money and worry.

5. How do you see the entire RFID marketing shaking out over the next few years? How big is the market opportunity?

Truecount is extremely bullish on the market opportunities now, and for the future.. The RFID market is expected to hit $6 billion in 2011 with item-level tracking within the supply chain to grow by 37 percent between now and 2016, so we are only at the beginning of a trend that will continue to change inventory and logistics management over the coming decade. No other technology is capable of doing what RFID does. The speed and accuracy with which real-time intelligence can be collected, shared and managed is unprecedented. With the global economy growing more competitive each day, we expect to see more businesses turning to RFID for its efficiencies and time-saving values. The opportunity is enormous.